Will José Mourinho return to Real Madrid?

by Guilherme Neto

Once again, Real Madrid season has been far from perfect and as we prepare to walk into March, the Merengues are already out of the Copa del Rey and sits on 3rd place in La Liga, 2 points behind Atletico Madrid and 9 points behind the leaders Barcelona. But not everything is lost yet, as Madrid are in good position to go through into the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals round, after having beaten Ajax by 1-2 in Amsterdam in the first leg, just a couple weeks ago. It looks like Madrid are yet again going all-in in the Champions League for another year and you can download this William Hill mobile app if you want to bet on “Los Blancos” to win the most coveted trophy in Europe.

Real Madrid‘s current manager, Santiago Solari, is on a tough spot right now. The only way to still save the season is to win the Champions League, but the reigning European champions are not main favorites to lift the trophy next June. According to many sports bookmakers in the market, the favorites are Manchester City, followed by Barcelona, PSG and only then Real Madrid. Nevertheless, we’ve learned not to underestimate the Merengues in Europe’s major competition and it’s going to be interesting to see if the club pulls it off and takes home their 4th consecutive Champions League trophy. What an achievement that would be!

José Mourinho in a Real Madrid training

However and in the event that Solari fails to deliver the silverware at the end of the season, it’s almost a certainty that a new manager will replace him in order to start preparing the next season. And as usual, several names have already been making headlines left and right in the media, with one in particular standing out from the rest: José Mourinho. The Portuguese manager had a 3-year spell with Real Madrid back in 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13, in which he won a Spanish League (2011-12), a Copa del Rey (2010-11) and a Spanish Supercup (2012). A lot of Madrid fans still have huge respect for Mourinho since then, as they believe the Portuguese was the main responsible for interrupting Barcelona‘s dynasty at the time.

In his last adventure in English soil when managing Manchester United, Mourinho struggled once again with a lot of conflicts with his own players. In fact, that’s been the main reason for almost all his club departures in the last 15 years and as time passes, it only seem to be getting worse. It’s a battle of egos between manager and players and it usually ends with the first being discarded. Nevertheless,

Florentino Pérez still has a great relationship with the Portuguese manager and according to multiple reports from European press, he’s Pérez first choice for the job.

If Mourinho does arrive to Madrid for a second time in his career, he’ll most probably be given the freedom and the budget to sign a bunch of new players to the team. A new centre-forward (striker) will be a priority to a team like Real Madrid, as well as a left-back and an attacking midfielder. Names like Lewandowski from Bayern Munich, Éden Hazard from Chelsea and Alex Sandro from Juventus are already being hinted with a summer move to the Spanish capital.